Recent Articleshttp://prospect.org/authors/126360/rss.xml
The American Prospect - articles by authorenBad Hair #2http://prospect.org/article/bad-hair-2
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p>This March, primary voters in Youngstown, Ohio, have the opportunity to weed out the worst haircut in Congress. </p>
<p></p><p>Said haircut belongs to Representative James A. Traficant, Jr., a Democrat who faces his first stiff re-election challenge in a 16-year congressional career. Traficant has won a fair amount of national media attention--and has become a favorite among C-SPAN junkies--for his bombastic one-minute speeches on the House floor, which he usually concludes with the phrase "Beam me up, Mr. Speaker." A self-styled populist with a disheveled coif and thrift-store suits, Traficant uses these early-morning tirades to rail against NAFTA, foreign steel imports, and the IRS. Especially the IRS. In one speech last fall, he proclaimed, "I say it is time to literally abolish both the IRS and the progressive un-American socialistic income tax. Audit this. I yield back the socialism of our income tax program."</p>
<p>The tax agency is of very personal interest to Traficant. Just as he was winning his first term in office in 1984, a U.S. tax court ruled Traficant had illegally evaded taxes on more than $100,000 in Mafia bribes he took while county sheriff (although a year earlier, Traficant had successfully defended himself against Justice Department criminal charges that he took mob money). He ended up paying around $180,000 in fines and penalties. </p>
<p>Despite (or perhaps because of) his outlandish personal style, Traficant has always won his re-election campaigns handily, usually with about 70 percent of the vote. But recently there have been signs his luck is changing. Voters were reminded of his alleged mob ties when two former aides were implicated in a Justice Department sweep that has ensnared dozens of Youngstown public officials and wise guys. This included Charles O'Nesti, a longtime top Traficant aide, who pled guilty to acting as the "bagman" for mobster Lenine "Lenny" Stollo. This January, Traficant announced that the U.S. attorney's office in northern Ohio had subpoenaed his office phone and payroll records, an action he denounced as retaliation for his past criticism of the agency. "I have done nothing wrong. End of story," he said in a recent statement.</p>
<p>Corruption, typically of the organized-crime variety, has long been the rule in Youngstown, dubbed "Crimetown U.S.A." by <i>The Saturday Evening Post </i>in 1963. But local activists like Randy Walter, founder of Citizens for Honest and Responsible Government, believe that public sentiment is turning and that ousting the congressman would help rehabilitate the region's image. </p>
<p>Walter and others also argue that the national media's portrayal of Traficant as a quixotic scamp misses the key issue for local residents: He hasn't consistently delivered for Youngstown. An economically depressed former steel town that has been very much left out of the economic boom, Youngstown is in clear need of revitalization. Robert Hagan, a state senator who is one of the Democrats running against Traficant, argues that Traficant's cantankerous relationship with Democrats means Youngstown gets left out when Congress divvies up the legislative goodies each session.</p>
<p>While local polls indicate Traficant's popularity has severely waned, the fact that there are two challengers running against him in the March 7 primary could split the pro-reform vote. Does that mean we're in for another two years of bizarre perorations on Waco and Mexican drug trafficking, and "Beam me up, Mr. Speaker"? Not necessarily. Local activists hope that despite the district's Democratic leanings, an independent candidate has a good chance of winning in the general election this November.</p>
</div></div></div>Wed, 19 Dec 2001 19:15:56 +0000142308 at http://prospect.orgLaura MaggiPork, Sweet, and Sourhttp://prospect.org/article/pork-sweet-and-sour
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p><font class="nonprinting articlebody"></font></p>
<p></p><p>Word was out in May that the Clinton administration was offering enticements to undecided congressional Democrats in order to win enough votes to permanently normalize trade with China--which the White House had singled out as key to the Clinton foreign policy legacy. After all, during the North American Free Trade Agreement vote in 1993, the Clinton White House threw open the legislative pork barrel, offering up tasty items to encourage hesitant Democrats to sign onto the free trade agreement. </p>
<p></p><p>This time, Representative Martin Frost, notably the third-most powerful Democrat in the House, came up a winner. Frost secured an agreement to preserve 5,000 jobs at a Northrop Grumman plant in his central Texas district. An aide said the company had been considering moving out of its outdated Navy-owned facilities. After timely negotiations with the Navy, the company agreed to continue operating in Grand Prairie, Texas.</p>
<p>But for the most part, the kind of favors being doled out this time were more pork rinds than pork, in the words of one observer. Instead of promises that funding for a local weather station would be reinstated, Representative Bud Cramer of Alabama received the Commerce Department's word that they would look into it. Instead of getting approval of a new gas pipeline into El Paso, Representative Silvestre Reyes was told the Environmental Protection Agency would make some kind of decision soon. Representative Ken Bentsen of Houston got a commission (a commission!) to look into how effective programs to help displaced workers are. "It is not that the member wants or expects to get something. They just want to say he/she got something," said Scott Nova, the director of Citizens Trade Campaign. </p>
<p>It appears there wasn't a single bridge secured, nor were any highway improvements made--not even an exit ramp. (Caution on the exit ramps: California Representative Matthew Martinez lost his seat this March to a primary challenger backed by labor unions that were angry Martinez had exchanged a 1997 trade vote for a highway exit ramp that still hasn't been built.) Considering that there is only half a year left in this administration's reign--and that the White House has a poor record in following through on past promises--lawmakers who were given "commitments" of some sort may not see results anytime soon. </p>
<p>Take Representative Benjamin Cardin, whose office says he received "certain commitments to help enforce existing trade laws" related to steel. Presumably, these agreements pertain to measures to keep other countries from unloading their steel at cut-rate prices in the United States. But as the Clinton administration hasn't been all that sensitive to the plight of steelworkers in the past few years, residents of Cardin's district who work for the Bethlehem Steel mill near Baltimore shouldn't pop open the six-pack. </p>
<p>The good thing about a tough vote is that it affords lawmakers the rare opportunity to get face time with the president--to discuss that freeway back home and maybe even get something done about it. It should be said, lawmakers and the administration insisted that during the China vote there were no quid pro quos. Plus, congressional observers note that very often the lawmakers looking to be persuaded by a little deal making aren't those who most strongly object to the administration's position, but in fact are already leaning in that direction.</p>
<p>And sometimes pork rinds are better than nothing. First-term Congressman Mike Thompson of California was able to swing a new zip code for a rural town in his district mistakenly given the same zip code as a nearby city. While his chief of staff said Thompson had lobbied for the new zip code for years as a state lawmaker and maintained that the deal was cemented after an unrelated conversation with the postmaster general, the congressman was able to bring it up with the White House. As Thompson's aide put it, "When the White House called regarding China trade, the congressman said, 'Nice that you call now; we had a hard time getting phone calls returned before.'" &amp;curren</p>
<p></p><p align="right">--Laura Maggi<br /><br /></p>
<p><br /></p>
<hr size="1" /><center>
<p align="center"><font face="verdana,geneva,arial" size="-2"></font>
class="nonprinting"&gt;<br /></p>
<p></p></center>
</div></div></div>Wed, 19 Dec 2001 19:15:53 +0000140575 at http://prospect.orgLaura MaggiThe Greening of Giulianihttp://prospect.org/article/greening-giuliani
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p><font class="nonprinting articlebody">&#13;</font></p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br /><font size="+2" color="darkred"><b> T</b></font>his June found New York City's crusading public advocate Mark Green courting financial support at a fundraising "comedy gala" in honor of his 55th birthday. To raise around $1 million for his 2001 mayoral bid, Green culled a selection of celebrities finely tuned to appeal to the sensibilities of the left-leaning (yet moneyed) baby boomer. Aside from a performance featuring the comedic stylings of Al Franken and Chevy Chase, participants who forked over $5,000 or $10,000 could attend a private cocktail reception--presumably to grouse about the excesses of the Giuliani administration with the likes of Marlo Thomas, Buck Henry, Tony Randall, and the eldest Baldwin brother.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
&#13;</p>
<p>Mark Green is climbing back onto his horse. New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's decision to bow out of the Senate race against Hillary Clinton was not only a major letdown for political journalists already bored with the presidential race, but also a blow for Green, who would have finished out the mayor's last year in office if Giuliani had won. Like the headstrong Giuliani running for Senate against a widely reviled (and revered) first lady, this surprising succession had all the qualities of a good political yarn, even with an ironic twist. Green, after all, has played the supporting role of Giuliani nemesis for the past seven years.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
The public advocate job is successor to what was once the second-most powerful elected office in New York City, president of the city council. That position was a casualty to a city charter reform in 1989. Though the public advocate's office has practically no legislative power, Green remains the city's highest-profile elected liberal.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
Ever since he successfully defeated Giuliani's clumsy attempt to alter the order of succession in yet another proposed charter revision last fall, Green has said he didn't want just to be handed the mayor's job. "I far, far preferred [to become mayor] not because Giuliani won an election but because I won an election," he told me. Green was in his car heading to one of the many events he attends each day when he heard the news on the radio that Giuliani was dropping out. "I didn't bat an eye. Just left to give a speech to a <i>Tikkun</i> conference," he said. Not that most political observers believe him. The developing wisdom was that a tryout run as mayor would have given Green not only the enviable position of running for mayor as an incumbent, but also a chance to prove he could govern as well as criticize.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
Now Green faces a wide-open field of Democratic candidates who have been milling around the New York political scene for as long as he has. The leading contenders are City Council Speaker Peter Vallone, City Comptroller Alan Hevesi, and Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer. As always, there will be a number of minor characters, likely including racial demagogue Al Sharpton, who, if he runs, could cut into Green's popularity with black voters. The 2001 Democratic primary should determine the next mayor--Giuliani is term limited, and there is probably no other Republican who can be elected in a city with a four-to-one ratio of registered Democrats to Republicans.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
While Green garners the most support in very early polls, it should prove to be a robust race. Under New York City's new campaign finance rules, which were crafted by Green and Vallone, candidates receive ample matching funds for small donations. And of course there are plenty of wealthy players in New York to hit up for the big donations that are not precluded under the matching system.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
Green is essentially the city government's official nag, criticizing how things are done and, occasionally, rooting out corruption. The public advocate is largely a kind of institutionalized Ralph Nader (who in fact was Green's longtime boss before Green turned to electoral politics). Green's power is largely limited to issuing reports, holding press conferences, and filing lawsuits, calling attention to where government has screwed up. After the shooting of Patrick Dorismond by an undercover police officer, Green sued the mayor's office for releasing Dorismond's juvenile criminal records. Last fall, Green's office released a well-regarded report on problems with the police department's responses to civilian complaints. The advocate's office also undertakes many less-than-glamorous investigations (a recent report demonstrates, for example, that most city agencies do not comply with regulations on how long they should keep callers on hold).&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
While Green doesn't like being categorized as a mere thorn in Giuliani's side, he has always clearly enjoyed giving the mayor a poke. His speeches and off-the-cuff remarks are liberally peppered with anti-Giuliani slights that have the same well-worn quality as the jokes that high school teachers tell period after period. Yet like the other prospective candidates, Green recognizes that despite Giuliani's ever-so-obvious failings, many voters credit him with improving the city's appearance and safety. "Everybody is going to be like him without saying they are. They will say, in effect, we are going to carry on the best without the rough edges," says Fred Siegel, a historian at Cooper Union.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
And indeed, even Green, who represents the liberal end of New York electoral politics, says in his stump speech that the future mayor shouldn't strive to be either the "new Giuliani" or the "anti-Giuliani," but instead should "build on this mayor's proven successes on crime and do better when it comes to student test scores, police misconduct, racial divisions, and secret government. The best models available are frankly those of Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, neither of whom simply reversed the policies of their conservative predecessors, but [who] kept the good and tossed the bad."&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
Remarkably enough, Green might even get a little help from Giuliani himself. The two men spoke on the phone after the mayor's strange New Agey press conference announcing he would not run for Senate. And the following week, they even met for a brief period after a bill-signing ceremony--their first tête-à-tête in four years. Green said they spoke about working together on a specific agenda, although he declined to identify particulars. "We agreed we should try to have a better relationship, since it couldn't get much worse." ¤&#13;<br />
&#13;
</p>
<p>&#13;<br /><br />&#13;</p>
<p><br />&#13;</p>
<hr size="1" /><center>&#13;
<p align="center"><font face="verdana,geneva,arial" size="-2"></font>
class="nonprinting"&gt;&#13;</p>
<hr size="1" />&#13;
<!-- dhandler for print articles --><p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
&#13;</p>
</center></div></div></div>Wed, 19 Dec 2001 19:15:53 +0000140583 at http://prospect.orgLaura MaggiThe Squeezehttp://prospect.org/article/squeeze
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p><font color="darkred" size="+2">I</font>n most city neighborhoods, the flight to the suburbs continues--with families leaving the city the moment they acquire the means. However, in a handful of trendy cities, there's been a movement in the opposite direction. This may be just what the cities thought they wanted, but it often leaves the poor with nowhere to live.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
Rents are surging not just in New York, but in the hot housing markets of San Francisco, Seattle, and Boston, where lots of well-off people are vying for a limited number of apartments and houses. Among the rich and the upper-middle class, incomes may be keeping pace with the bounding rents, but incomes at the bottom are not. In each of these cities, housing activists report seeing increasing numbers of poor families shelling out 50 percent or more of their income in rent or crowding more than one family into an apartment. Across the country, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development estimates, 5.4 million households now live in these substandard conditions, up from 4.8 million only nine years ago. &#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
The imbalance between housing need and affordable supply is something the government used to make its business to redress. But for 25 years, federal investment in affordable housing (defined nowadays as housing that costs no more than 30 percent of a household's income) has steadily declined. Nationwide, the total number of low- to moderate-income housing units made affordable by federal rent subsidies, construction subsidies, or public housing programs is now down to 4.3 million--less than half the estimated need. In San Francisco, the wait for public housing is three to eight years. Seattle estimates the current wait there for a rent voucher at up to three years. &#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
In Boston even families with a federal rent voucher in hand often can't find affordable housing. One of the city's agencies for helping the homeless, in fact, takes busloads of people to look for apartments in less prosperous cities an hour or more away. For single mothers on welfare, says Alfredo Ribot, who works at a Boston shelter for homeless women and children, moving away from friends and family they've counted on for support can be both daunting and costly. Even for those with more resources, moving this far away from their jobs, families, neighbors, and church parishes can be traumatic.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
Nonetheless, the need for affordable housing gets virtually no national political attention. The two major presidential candidates both had official "issue positions" on the subject--Bush focusing on moderate-income families that wish to buy homes and Gore essentially proposing to continue Clinton administration policies--but they hardly ever mentioned them. The Clinton administration's main housing strategy was to call for more rent subsidy vouchers. (In 1995 Congress froze the number of vouchers issued, and it didn't permit any increase until last year, when a mere 50,000 new vouchers were finally issued to help the estimated 5.4 million households needing them. For next year's budget, Clinton asked for an additional 120,000 vouchers, and Congress approved 80,000 in appropriations bills. While the additional vouchers would be useful in many parts of the country, they wouldn't accomplish much in markets as desperately short of housing as Boston, San Francisco, and Seattle. There, what's most needed is new construction.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
Specifically, we need construction subsidies targeted at people with very low incomes. The few federal construction programs that still exist don't reach them. Housing advocates say the Home Investment Partnerships Program, called HOME, and the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit--the two major federal programs that help build apartments to be rented at discounted rates--are used primarily to help people who earn about 60 percent of the median income, or $36,000 for a family of four.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
When nonprofit or commercial developers want to build housing for families poorer than that, they need to cobble together a myriad of subsidy sources to make the project financially possible, says Anne Gelbspan, a project manager for the Women's Institute for Housing and Economic Development, a nonprofit provider of housing and support services to poor families in Boston. And the extra time and work that goes into grubbing for money makes these projects even more expensive. Gelbspan says that to build 26 units recently for very low-income grandparents raising their grandchildren, the Women's Institute had to pull together tax credits, money from state and city programs, loans from a Federal Home Loan Bank, and foundation support. And still the group needed to work with local authorities to create a pool of rental vouchers to be attached to the building, which was the only way they could charge rents low enough for these poor families to afford.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
In San Francisco last year, the gentrification driving lower-income families out of neighborhoods they have lived in for generations was a hot issue in the mayor's race. This year, there are two propositions on the November ballot targeted at the dot-com companies many feel have taken over the city; both propose to restrict office construction. Meanwhile, San Francisco's Mission District--a neighborhood of working-class Hispanics and activist artists--reports growing numbers of vandalized SUVs and renovated buildings tarnished with anti-yuppie graffiti.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
In Boston, where the city is requiring convention center and waterfront developers to put money into a fund for building at least a small amount of affordable replacement housing, a major brouhaha has erupted over the distribution of these funds among desperate neighborhoods--and over the hopes of at least one politician in the Irish-American enclave of South Boston that the new housing could be for current (i.e., white) residents only. People in the old neighborhoods of these trendy cities feel like they are under siege and, often enough, at each other's throats.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
"My family and community are going away," said Frances "Lucky" Devlin after a passionate and packed neighborhood meeting in South Boston this summer. "This is becoming a community of the rich; we're just pushing the poor out. Where do they go? Who is watching out for them?"&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
In a nation whose largest public investment in housing is the markedly regressive mortgage interest tax deduction--which is good on home loans up to $1 million and is expected to cost the U.S. Treasury $100 billion in lost revenues this year--more people should be asking Lucky Devlin's question. ¤</p>
<!-- dhandler for print articles --><p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
&#13;</p>
</div></div></div>Wed, 19 Dec 2001 19:13:49 +0000141497 at http://prospect.orgLaura MaggiDeath, Taxes, and Fees:http://prospect.org/article/death-taxes-and-fees
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p>Every year around this time millions of the working poor send their tax &#13;<br />
forms to the Internal Revenue Service, applying for an end-of-the-year bonus &#13;<br />
known as the earned income tax credit (EITC). For people struggling to &#13;<br />
support their families on salaries that typically hover around the poverty &#13;<br />
line, the couple thousand dollars they might receive is often counted on to &#13;<br />
clear up debts or make a necessary big purchase.&#13;<br />
&#13;<br /></p><p>Expanded by President Clinton as a key component of his anti-poverty program, the EITC is a tax benefit designed to benefit low and moderate-income workers. For people struggling to make ends meet with low paying jobs, the EITC helps make work more attractive than welfare and provides an important income supplement. All told, around 20 million people receive the credit each year.&#13;<br />
&#13;<br /></p><p>However, it looks like chunks of the credit aren't going to the working poor at all, but instead to behemoth tax-preparing agencies -- agencies that may not be being totally honest with the people who are paying them large fees to get the credits. H&amp;R Block, one of the biggest agencies, has made one lawyer so mad that he's suing for false advertising. Others simply think the agencies and the banks that partner with them are unfairly profiting off the poor.&#13;<br />
&#13;<br /></p><p>The EITC works like this: Workers fill out their tax forms and send them to the IRS. For those who are eligible for the EITC, the government sends them a check -- much like the tax refunds that others may receive. But accounting companies like H&amp;R Block offer another option. They fill out the tax forms for people, charging them the standard fee, and then if they qualify for the credit, they offer what amounts to a short-term bank loan that allows people to get their EITC in just a few days. The catch is that the firms charge a hefty fee for that loan -- even though the period of the loan may be just over a week and a half.&#13;<br />
&#13;<br /></p><p>These monetary quick fixes, formally known as refund anticipation loans, are very popular items at tax preparation companies, not only with people who are eligible for the EITC, but also with those who receive regular refunds. H&amp;R Block estimates that this January alone the company arranged for 1.4 million of the loans.&#13;<br />
&#13;<br /></p><p>The company contracts to provide these refund anticipation loans through a bank. The bank sets up an account for the tax refund, cuts the customer a check minus the fees, and is reimbursed when the IRS sends in the refund. In order to get one of these loans, the tax preparation company must file an electronic tax form with the IRS, which means the customer would have gotten the refund back in just two weeks anyway. At H&amp;R Block, the fee for the quick refund ranges from $20 to $60, depending on how big the expected check from the IRS is. The EITC is crafted so that the neediest workers get the largest credit -- so the banks are profiting the most from the recipients with the least. And since the loan is short-term, the fee often represents annual percentage rates of over 100 percent. &#13;<br />
&#13;<br /></p><p>The loan fee is not the only one. A commercial tax preparation service will &#13;<br />
typically charge around $85 to fill out the forms and another $25 to file &#13;<br />
them electronically. All together, that adds up to as much as $170.&#13;<br />
&#13;<br /></p><p>To John Wancheck, the EITC campaign coordinator for the Center on Budget and &#13;<br />
Policy Priorities, a poor person shelling out $170 out of a couple thousand dollar credit &#13;<br />
is not money well spent, particularly when the IRS helps fund free tax &#13;<br />
preparation services for low-income workers. "When this person goes in to &#13;<br />
spend money to get a refund, he is spending money he doesn't have," Wancheck says.&#13;<br />
&#13;<br /></p><p>Others question whether there is adequate explanation of the fact that customers can get their refund back quickly without the fast refund. In California, Karl Olson, a San Francisco attorney, filed suit against H&amp;R Block, charging that the company engaged in false advertising practices. Between the long forms and small print, it is not clear people really understand they don't have to buy the loan, he says. &#13;<br />
&#13;<br /></p><p>The H&amp;R Block agents are "scripted to try and steer people into loans as the first option, without telling them they can get the refund in two weeks from IRS," Olson explains. The lawsuit, filed in 1997, might go to trial this May.&#13;<br />
&#13;<br /></p><p>Others agree. Surveys of low-income workers show that many do not know that they are eligible for the EITC. Therefore, H&amp;R Block and others may appear to be getting low-income workers free money. The workers -- many of whom know little about tax policy -- don't know that they can get the money without paying hefty fees.&#13;<br />
&#13;<br /></p><p>"I would say it is likely that many people receiving these refund anticipation loans don't understand how high an interest rate they are paying," says Jeffrey Liebman, a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government who studies the EITC. "On the other hand, these paid tax preparers probably increase the take up rate of the EITC because of their heavy advertising and presence in low income communities."&#13;<br />
&#13;<br /></p><p>While he will not comment directly on the lawsuit, H&amp;R Block spokesman Neil &#13;<br />
Getzlow says that customers sign an application that discloses what all the &#13;<br />
charges are. "A lot of clients prefer to get money back in a short amount of &#13;<br />
time. A lot of people need the money right away," Getzlow argues. "I did my &#13;<br />
taxes and I got one."&#13;<br />
&#13;<br /></p><p>These quick loans are just one of a seemingly endless number of financial &#13;<br />
services targeted at low-income people that charge exorbitant rates and &#13;<br />
fees. For example, poor people often do not have bank accounts and will &#13;<br />
spend a good chunk of each paycheck getting it cashed at a check-cashing &#13;<br />
store. In Washington, D.C., one check-cashing outlet charges an extra fee to &#13;<br />
pay out a government check like a tax refund or a Social Security check, says Jeffrey S. Gold, a certified public accountant who coordinates a free tax assistance program. This practice is particularly objectionable because government checks pose the least risk; a check from the U.S. Treasury will never bounce.&#13;<br />
&#13;<br /></p><p>Another problem is that low-income people often seek tax help not at big &#13;<br />
companies like H&amp;R Block, but at "storefront" operations that might be less &#13;<br />
scrupulous or more prone to making errors. Nina Olson, who runs a Virginia &#13;<br />
legal aid clinic that helps low-income workers with tax cases before the &#13;<br />
IRS, says that more than half the problem returns her clinic deals with were &#13;<br />
prepared by somebody else. If there is a mistake in the form -- for example taking credit &#13;<br />
for a child who lives with another parent -- the person who filed the claim is &#13;<br />
on the hook for the credit they received, plus a penalty fee, plus interest.&#13;<br />
&#13;<br /></p><p>"A lot of the time people will set up shop in a place like a check cashing &#13;<br />
store, just one person who sits there from February 1 to April 15. If you &#13;<br />
went back afterwards after running into problems with your taxes, that person &#13;<br />
wouldn't be there," she explains.&#13;<br />
&#13;<br /></p><p>In New Mexico, car dealerships advertise that they will help people with &#13;<br />
their tax returns and then use the refund as a down payment on a car. These &#13;<br />
offers are very appealing to people who get the EITC, according to Veronika &#13;<br />
Fabian, who directs the consumer law division of a legal aid group near the &#13;<br />
Navajo Nation reservation. But people who screw up on their tax forms -- such &#13;<br />
as claiming dependents they aren't entitled to -- will end up having their tax &#13;<br />
refunds intercepted by the IRS. Then, the person not only loses the car but &#13;<br />
often ends up owing the IRS money, Fabian says.&#13;<br />
&#13;<br /></p><p>Advocates for low-income taxpayers say the easiest solution to protect &#13;<br />
low-income people from these kind of dubious services would be to expand the &#13;<br />
amount of free clinics that help people with their taxes. While the IRS &#13;<br />
currently funds a program, providing staff to train volunteers, they need to &#13;<br />
put more money into the program, says Michael O'Connor, founder of several free tax preparation clinics in Illinois. Local groups need help in recruiting and supervising volunteers, as well as with advertising, so poor people will know they don't have to go to a commercial tax company.&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
&#13;</p>
</div></div></div>Wed, 19 Dec 2001 19:04:06 +0000139232 at http://prospect.orgLaura MaggiA Conversation with Suzanne Gordonhttp://prospect.org/article/conversation-suzanne-gordon
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p><font face="verdana,geneva,arial" size="2" color="darkred">Suzanne Gordon <a href="/print/V11/7/gordon-s.html">["Nurse, Interrupted," TAP Vol. 11 Issue 7]</a> is a journalist who has been writing about nursing issues since 1986. In "Life Support: Three Nurses on the Front Lines," Gordon details the three years she spent reporting on three different nurses. Laura Maggi is a Writing Fellow at the American Prospect.</font></p>
<p></p>
<p><font color="#004987">Q: In your article you talk about nurses being downsized and the work becoming more taxing and less rewarding, and I was wondering when this started happening. When did the policies start changing?</font></p>
<p>
</p><table cellpadding="8" cellspacing="0" border="0"><tr><td>
<p>A: I think that nursing work has always been very difficult and nurses have always put up with stuff they shouldn't have had to put up with, for example, disrespect and poor pay. I think that the situation started to improve in the mid-'80s with the advent of primary nursing where you had one nurse for one patient. ... They got rid of this thing called social nursing where one nurse would do bed baths and another would give pills and nobody had the total patient picture or a connection to the patient. Also, nursing salaries went up in the '80s, and there were a lot of educational opportunities that hospitals gave nurses, recognizing that doctors aren't the only learners.</p>
<p>But then all of that really started to disappear when we had the advent of market-driven healthcare. And with the kind of relentless cost cutting that you see today, hospitals have really targeted nursing to cut costs. So, you see patient loads increasing, mandatory overtime, nurses' pay stagnating, and the kind of working conditions that people find impossible to work in and give quality care. </p>
</td>
</tr></table><p><font color="#004987">Q: But you also note in your article that hospitals now face a shortage of nurses.</font></p>
<table cellpadding="8" cellspacing="0" border="0"><tr><td>
<p>A: They cut costs, laid off the most senior, most experienced nurses. They then replaced them with aides and didn't hire more nurses to fill positions lost due to attrition. And, after awhile, guess what happens? You won't have enough nurses after you do that for five or six years. </p>
<p>Working conditions for nurses who remain on the job become so atrocious that it gets out in newspapers, gets out by word of mouth. I've found in talking to nurses, they will instantly discourage young men or women from becoming nurses. When family members or friends go to nursing school, they will say, "What, are you crazy?"</p>
</td>
</tr></table><p><font color="#004987">Q: How come the healthcare system does not recognize the importance of nurses?</font></p>
<table cellpadding="8" cellspacing="0" border="0"><tr><td>
<p>A: Because it is women's work, because it has always been devalued, because it is attributed to women's intuition. Because we have always taken for granted that nurses will always be there. We know we have to reward doctors. It is a social truism, people will say to you always, if you don't pay them enough we won't get the best and brightest into [the] medical profession. If that is the calculus, if the incentive for doing good things is monetary, why do we assume that the incentive doesn't apply to nurses? Most nurses aren't working for pin money -- they are working to support their families like everybody else. Many are the sole support for their families. But they are also working for satisfaction and many of them feel morally compromised. </p>
</td>
</tr></table><p><font color="#004987">Q: The anecdotes you use in the article seem to suggest there is a lot of despair among nurses.</font></p>
<table cellpadding="8" cellspacing="0" border="0"><tr><td>
<p>A: I think there is despair among everybody in healthcare. Fewer people want to be doctors, but there [are] still more rewards for doctors. The fact is that people know it takes a lot of education and skill to be a brain surgeon. People don't know that it takes a lot of education and skill to take care of somebody who has just had brain surgery. That is the missing link in the nursing crisis. The fact is people are fighting for access to their doctors. They are not fighting with equal vigor for access to their nurse. People know they have to have doctors. All these patients' bills of rights are centered around doctors and medicine, but they need to include nurses. </p>
</td>
</tr></table><p><font color="#004987">Q: You reference in your article an American Hospital Association report that details patients being very critical of the absence of nurses.</font></p>
<table cellpadding="8" cellspacing="0" border="0"><tr><td>
<p>A: That was just of patients who have gone to the hospital. A very small percentage of people every year are hospitalized, maybe 10 or 15 percent. So those people begin to learn about nursing. People that they interviewed in that study had just been in the hospital, they were very aware of nursing and lack of care. That is a little late to be worrying about whether we have enough nurses to take care of you. </p>
<p>Nurses are regarded as honest and ethical but their breadth of skill is not known. When I was at the Beth Israel hospital, I was on the oncology clinic, followed these nurses for two years. Doctor comes in one day. Had a patient with breast cancer and the patient died. The husband gives him a trip around the world. What does he give the two nurses who cared for her? A scarf. The woman died, so it didn't work. The people who cared for her were the nurses. I happen to know the doctor, he was a you're dying, I'm disappearing kind of guy. The people who take care of her were her nurses. He gets the trip around the world, they get scarves. I think that says it all. </p>
<p>Christopher Reeves is the perfect example of this. His book, which I reviewed a while ago, he goes on and on about these doctors and what they did for him. I'm not knocking doctors, don't get me wrong, but the people who kept this guy alive on minute-to-minute basis were the nurses in that intensive care unit. And then his whole life is dependent, literally every function in his body, is dependent on nurses. In his book, the best the ICU nurses got was that they had sweet, gentle, Southern voices. With the doctors, it was how competent they were. </p>
</td>
</tr></table><p><font color="#004987">Q: Every once in awhile you will read in the paper that nurses are trying to unionize or that nurses in a particular hospital are trying to get better pay. Has there been more effective agitation?</font></p>
<table cellpadding="8" cellspacing="0" border="0"><tr><td>
<p>A: There is increasing agitation. Same thing that is happening with doctors, although nurses have been unionized for a lot longer. [About] 10 to 12 percent of nurses are unionized. There is increasing unionization and nurses that are unionized are getting more and more assertive because conditions are more awful. </p>
</td>
</tr></table><p><font color="#004987">Q: You mention a California law that requires hospitals to implement safe-staffing practices (i.e.: mandating nurse-to-patient ratios), do you expect to see more provisions like that?</font></p>
<table cellpadding="8" cellspacing="0" border="0"><tr><td>
<p>A: Yes, there are staffing bills in Rhode Island and New Jersey. There are also probably about 20 states where there are whistle blower measures and safe-needle measures. There are all kinds of attempts to mandate reporting of hospitals of what they call nurse-sensitive indicators. It means to correlate certain things that happen to patients with nursing, like falls, pneumonia, [and] urinary-tract infections, with numbers and experiences of nurses. </p>
<p>Personally, I think there needs to be more class-action suits for putting patients at undue risks, for not having enough nurses. If a patient is lying in terror and loneliness and pain and fear, the healthcare system is supposed to be about mitigating that, not just giving them antibiotics every four hours or operating on their leg. The other thing is, we are seeing much more evidence about the medical errors that are killing and hurting patients. People ought to understand that ... nurses can't protect you if they aren't there with you. There are also [a] lot of medical injuries [that] have to do with fact that system won't listen to nurses. [There have been] cases where nurses will try to blow the whistle on physicians' failings, but they are reprimanded for insubordination. </p>
</td>
</tr></table><p><font color="#004987">Q: So there has to be more internal hospital respect for nurses as professionals?</font></p>
<table cellpadding="8" cellspacing="0" border="0"><tr><td>
<p>A: There is a fascinating case in Canada right now going on about this. An American surgeon hired by hospital in Winnipeg to be the head of pediatric cardiac surgery. Turned out his references were not checked enough, didn't have the experience they thought they had. Twelve babies died on the table or on the ICU. A nurse who had 20 years experience as an operating nurse was watching the failings of his surgical technique and alerted hospital and medical authorities. And they basically wouldn't listen to her. In fact, one doctor told her, when she asked him to come to operating room and observe this guy's technique, he basically told her that he didn't take orders from nurses. And [large] numbers of babies died because they wouldn't listen to a nurse. [It was] only when doctors objected that they closed this guy down. What are we doing here? Why educate people as professionals if you won't listen to their judgment? </p>
</td>
</tr></table><p><font color="#004987">Q: You mentioned class action lawsuits, is there anything else you think we can do to change the situation?</font></p>
<table cellpadding="8" cellspacing="0" border="0"><tr><td>
<p>A: I think we need a social transformation of our attitudes toward the biggest profession in healthcare. Why are they there? Not there to fluff our pillows and empty our bedpans. If they do, there is a lot going on that is very important in that work. Nursing work looks very domestic, so we tend to trivialize it like we trivialize parenting. I call nurses knowledgeable caregivers; they are who patients want at their bedsides. They may not know that before they get sick, but they will know it when they are. </p>
</td>
</tr></table><p><font color="#004987">Q: How did you get interested in this?</font></p>
<table cellpadding="8" cellspacing="0" border="0"><tr><td>
<p>A: I got interested by being one of these people who didn't understand. Having a baby, going to the hospital and thinking it was the doctors who were going to do everything and discovering it was the nurses who do everything. I started thinking, geez this is pretty interesting. All these people out there holding up healthcare system with brains, not just grit. </p>
</td>
</tr></table></div></div></div>Sat, 08 Dec 2001 00:49:38 +0000139217 at http://prospect.orgLaura MaggiThe Poor Counthttp://prospect.org/article/poor-count
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p>Determining precisely who are the poorest Americans would seem to be a simple enough things to do. But like many bureaucratic tasks, counting up the official poor is fraught with political complications. Last October the issue became front-page news when <i>The New York Times</i> suggested that the Census Bureau might raise the poverty level, boosting the threshold that establishes who counts as officially poor from $16,600 to $19,500 for a family of four. Actually, the <i>Times</i> was wrong (the bureau doesn't even have the power to change the level). But even the false assertion that the poverty level might be raised sparked a fair amount of debate.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
&#13;</p>
<p>Based on a flurry of editorials written after the story, it is clear any eventual raise of the poverty level--a change long overdue--will be highly politicized and controversial. The conservative response follows a general tack: Ignore the growing gap between rich and poor, but trumpet the increasing affordability of all sorts of consumer goods. In <i>The Wall Street Journal</i> op-ed pages, W. Michael Cox and Richard Alm, co-authors of the recent book <i>Myths of the Rich &amp; Poor</i>, observed that two-thirds of poor families owned microwave ovens in 1996, while three-quarters owned VCRs. Other editorials touted similar figures, citing a 1998 Heritage Foundation report that magnanimously observed that poor people's living situations have improved since the Dickensian squalor of nineteenth-century tenement housing.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
But as Chauna Brocht of the Economic Policy Institute explained in a letter to the <i>Journal</i>, omitted in this emphasis on the declining prices of consumer electronic goods is the growing share of a low-income family's budget spent on expensive necessities, such as health care, housing, and transportation. Sure, poor people own many of the products we now consider part of the average American household, but despite our booming economy, lots of families are having a tough time finding affordable housing or paying for medical care without insurance coverage.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
More critically, the Census Bureau poverty calculations are almost arbitrarily abstract. The agency takes a 50-year-old government approximation of a cheap annual food budget, multiplies it by three, and then adjusts for family size and inflation. Everyone who earns less income than the amount derived from the above equation--which in 1998 meant $16,600 for a family of four--lives below the poverty line.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
The formula was devised in 1964 by Social Security Administration analyst Mollie Orshansky, who used data collected in the 1950s. She figured the average family spent a third of its budget on food, and anyone who couldn't afford a nutritionally adequate diet could be reasonably described as poor: a useful calculation during the Johnson administration, perhaps, but not the most precise measurement today.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
There are other problems. Critics note that the agency only considers people's income, excluding many government benefits that help people with very low incomes make ends meet, such as refunds from the Earned Income Tax Credit, food stamps, or housing subsidies. On the flip side, the bureau doesn't account for drastic changes in everyday economics. While the price of food has actually gone down over the past 50 years, poor families now have to spend larger portions of their budget on housing and child care.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
This is too bad because the poverty numbers are typically the most widely followed income statistics in the country, which is why a more accurate measurement of poverty is important. Gary Burtless, a Brookings Institution economist, explains it would give policy makers information on the effectiveness of their decisions. Do we need to spend more on affordable housing? Is welfare reform helping poor women with children escape poverty? Despite the fact that we really can't answer these questions using the current measure, any changes are a long time off. Poverty figures determine eligibility for some federal programs, such as Head Start and food stamps, and politicians are cautious about having to automatically spend more money on the poor. But some proponents of a revision, including Burtless, believe compromise changes could be implemented that wouldn't increase the number of people counted as poor, but would still better explain who is poor and why.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;</p>
<!-- dhandler for print articles --><p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
&#13;</p>
</div></div></div>Fri, 07 Dec 2001 22:07:41 +0000141920 at http://prospect.orgLaura MaggiMaking White Elephants Flyhttp://prospect.org/article/making-white-elephants-fly
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p>&#13;</p>
<p>In the summer of 1998, after about a year of peddling its Oyster Creek nuclear plant and finding no takers, GPU Inc. appeared resigned to shutting the unit down. Aging, inefficient, and economically uncompetitive, Oyster Creek was a prime example of how nuclear power--the ultimate energy boondoggle--wouldn't survive in the new world of deregulated energy markets. But this past fall, GPU announced it had actually found a buyer. At $10 million, one-sixtieth of the plant's $600-million valuation, AmerGen Energy Company got a real bargain. In fact, the company, a joint venture between Philadelphia-based PECO Energy Company and British Energy, was formed explicitly to scavenge the nation's unwanted nuclear units. It has made similar offers on six other plants and plans to buy many more. PECO, which is merging with the Midwest's utility behemoth Unicom, is fast becoming the country's nuclear powerhouse. Another company, Entergy Corporation, is also eyeing the nuclear market and has already completed a deal to buy a plant in Massachusetts.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
&#13;</p>
<p>Given the industry's history, expanding into nuclear power might seem ridiculous. But as Oyster Creek's $10-million price tag demonstrates, nuclear reactors are going for clearance prices--subsidized, of course, by consumers. Thanks to these subsidies, white-elephant nuclear power plants are enjoying a second childhood. Ironically, these bailouts are part of energy "deregulation," which supposedly subjects electric utilities to the discipline of market forces. &#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
In the words of antinuclear activist Paul Gunter, "These plants are selling for the cost of fuel, with the reactors tossed in as a freebie." The utilities, eager to shed their nuclear holdings, can afford to part with the plants for cheap because under state deregulation laws, the consumer pays off the remaining construction debt--the enormous capital costs that made nuclear power so expensive and, therefore, uncompetitive. &#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
&#13;</p>
<p><font color="darkred"><b>The Great Bailout</b></font>&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
&#13;</p>
<p>So far, 24 states have begun opening their energy markets to competition. These are states with higher-than-average energy prices, usually because of utilities' unwise investments. In the past, nuclear power plants sometimes ate up billions of dollars before producing a single kilowatt. The escalating costs of building nukes have been ascribed both to tougher regulations implemented after the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 and to utility incompetence. These plants have generated some of the most expensive power in the country. &#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
&#13;</p>
<p>During the past few years, as states moved to restructure their energy markets, legislators debated how to deal with nuclear plants and other bad investments, which the utilities euphemistically termed "stranded costs" or "stranded assets." The utilities contended that they would not be able to compete in an open market against firms with no previous baggage unless consumers paid off the remaining capital costs. &#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
In the era of regulation, customers typically paid for bad decisions that had been sanctioned by regulators. In the jousting over the terms of deregulation, some consumer and environmental groups argued that utilities often invested in these ventures over local objections, so utility shareholders should bear some, if not all, of the costs as the companies move to a competitive market. However, in every state deregulation scheme, utilities and their shareholders won huge bailouts by ratepayers, amounting to billions of dollars that will be tacked onto millions of customers' electricity bills over the course of several years. &#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
&#13;</p>
<p><font color="darkred"><b>Footloose and Debt Free</b></font>&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
&#13;</p>
<p>Sloughing off the debt makes nuclear power plants artificially competitive, even against the cheapest power sources. Because most plants have two or three decades left on their licenses, this could amount to a very shrewd investment for AmerGen or Entergy. Evaluating only production costs, the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) predicts plants' generating prices will be roughly on par with coal: nuclear power at 1.9 cents per kilowatt, coal at 1.8 cents per kilowatt. For example, the Limerick plant in Pennsylvania, which is owned by PECO, generates power at 1.43 cents a kilowatt-hour after deregulation, when most of the capital costs have been written off. But if capital costs are figured in, the company estimates the plant's power would cost eight cents a kilowatt-hour.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
&#13;</p>
<p>During atomic energy's half-century of commercial existence, the industry has survived on the public dole, clinging to life supported by subsidy after subsidy. Nuclear has become the most heavily subsidized energy source, from the industry's federally backed insurance limiting utilities' liability to ratepayers who absorbed the enormous construction costs through years of high energy prices, to billions of dollars in federal research and development funding. Now, even their recycling to new owners is being subsidized.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
But this latest ratepayer bailout changes the very economics of the nuclear business. This is particularly galling because one of the initial promises of energy deregulation was that the most efficient technologies would win out in a free market, dooming economic and environmental dinosaurs like nuclear. Instead, the mechanics of "deregulation" have produced a sheltered market in which uneconomical facilities are shielded from the rigors of competition and ratepayers are no longer protected by regulation. Plus, the new nuclear owners will most likely find a heightened demand for their product in a market characterized by increasingly tight capacity, where the strong economy and consumer needs are eating away at surpluses that have typified U.S. energy markets in recent years.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
This is not to say that the new owners of a nuclear plant aren't making a financial bet. Major repairs on nuclear plants can be very expensive. More importantly, the sale of used plants does not herald a full-scale nuclear revival. Nuclear has been on the wane since the Three Mile Island accident and the vigorous protests that followed, when plans for nearly 100 plants were scrapped. Even if the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approves 40-year extensions of some plants' licenses, nobody thinks it makes economic sense to build a new plant. &#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
&#13;</p>
<p><font color="darkred"><b>Nuking Consumers</b></font>&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
&#13;</p>
<p>Strangely, these transactions are often presented as a good deal for consumers. In news reports about the $10-million sale of Oyster Creek, GPU spokesmen have highlighted the $200 million ratepayers will supposedly save. But those savings are a calculation of the amount consumers would have paid into the decommissioning fund if the plant were shut down early, leaving out the roughly $590 million ratepayers will cough up to relieve GPU of the debt associated with the plant.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
&#13;</p>
<p>Or take the example of the Pilgrim plant in Massachusetts. Entergy, a New Orleans-based company that is also the public utility in Louisiana, paid Boston Edison Company $81 million for a plant with a book value of $700 million. Under the agreement, approved last summer, Entergy also received a decommissioning fund worth $466 million--a dowry that will pay to dismantle the plant once the license expires and the reactor is shut down for good. Consumers have already paid around $200 million into the fund, and Boston Edison will raise the rest from charges on electricity bills. &#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
For Boston Edison, this sale means the company is absolved of future responsibility for the plant, including the hassle of the eventual shutdown while consumers pay the debts from past construction and repairs. Of the $1 billion the company's customers are paying for all of Boston Edison's "stranded costs," over $500 million is from the Pilgrim plant alone. Consumers will cover this debt through "transition" charges on their electricity bills.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
Like Oyster Creek, the Pilgrim plant wasn't supposed to be a prime candidate for acquisition; it was just too expensive to operate. Deregulation was expected to reveal that reality, not camouflage it. In fact, one of the more centrist environmental groups, the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF), helped successfully fight a referendum last year that would have overturned Massachusetts's deregulation law because the group believed the law would be good for the environment. CLF's campaign literature maintained that competition would "hasten the retirement of the region's old, dirty, and inefficient coal- and oil-fired power plants and its nuclear units." Under this theory, the polluters would then have been replaced with cleaner, combined-cycle gas turbine plants.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
Of course, that hasn't played out. Once its capital costs are written off and charged to ratepayers, an already constructed plant has an obvious advantage--you don't have to pay to build it. In the early 1980s, the story was quite different; utilities built lots of power plants in anticipation of high demand that never materialized, explained David Penn, the deputy executive director of the American Public Power Association. Since then, no companies or utilities have built new base-load generating plants, focusing instead on smaller ones that can be operated during times of peak need. So deregulation won't drive environmentally questionable facilities out of business. Rather, many energy analysts and environmentalists predict older plants will continue to operate while more plants are simply added to the mix. &#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br /><font color="darkred"><b>Nuclear Antiques </b></font>&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
&#13;</p>
<p>For AmerGen, the economies of scale achieved by owning a large collection of plants is critical to the company's strategy. In practical terms it will mean, for example, running a number of plants in the same geographical area with management and outage teams traveling from unit to unit, said Bill Jones, a spokesman for the company. Deb Katz, the executive director of the Citizen Awareness Network in western Massachusetts, pointed out that after the nuclear industry in Britain was privatized under British Energy's care, the work force maintaining the country's 11 plants was severely pared down. The British nuclear regulatory body criticized the staff reductions as potentially dangerous in a draft report leaked to the media this summer, although those concerns were reportedly toned down in later drafts.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
&#13;</p>
<p>More immediate than the somewhat distant possibility of a serious accident, this decision to extend nuclear power's life-span is also a decision to continue producing radioactive waste that, as of yet, has no final destination. Under a 1982 law, the ultimate responsibility rests with the federal government, which was supposed to build a repository for commercial waste by 1998. That hasn't happened, leaving around 40,000 tons of waste sitting at 72 reactor sites around the country. The waste--uranium pellets stored in 12-foot-long rods--is kept in pools of water and boron, a chemical that prevents nuclear chain reactions. Some older plants are running out of space in these spent fuel storage pools and are forced to store the excess in aboveground dry casks. &#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
Meanwhile, the radioactive material's ultimate resting place--where it will lie buried for 10,000 years--is nowhere near receiving final approval. The Department of Energy is conducting extensive evaluations of only one site, a desert ridge in Nevada called Yucca Mountain. If approved, the site won't be ready to begin receiving shipments for at least a decade. &#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
Despite this problem of nuclear waste with no place to go, the industry is already selling itself as an environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuels. "If anything is going to be done with regard to achieving limits [to meet proposed international air standards], nuclear energy is going to have to play a huge role," said Steve Kerekes, a spokesman for the NEI. This is a shopworn argument with nuclear proponents, who have always aggressively sold this spin to policy makers, partially to explain the hefty subsidies the industry has received over the years. During the oil crises in the 1970s, nuclear power was supposed to shelter the United States from dependence on foreign fossil fuel. Now, the industry has jumped aboard international efforts to decrease air pollution. &#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
The NEI has already run two different magazine and newspaper ad campaigns about nuclear power's purported environmental advantages in the past two years, although the group maintained they were directed at lawmakers, not consumers. Nevertheless, the Natural Resources Defense Council and other organizations challenged the first round of ads at the Better Business Bureau of New York, questioning the depiction of nuclear energy as "environmentally clean." The bureau agreed and forwarded the matter to the Federal Trade Commission, which has yet to take action.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
While environmentalists are up in arms, Wall Street likes what it sees. Many analysts expect a consolidation of which companies own the remaining nukes, a trend that mirrors the intense consolidation currently taking place in the energy industry at large, exemplified by PECO's recent decision to merge with Unicom. There are 103 operating nuclear plants in the country; between them, Unicom and PECO own 14 (with AmerGen's six potential acquisitions, the new company's total will be 20 nuclear plants). &#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
&#13;</p>
<p>In its proposed purchase of six nuclear units, AmerGen will spend from $10 million to $100 million. The company has made offers on the Oyster Creek plant and has bought the unmelted unit at Three Mile Island, which was also owned by GPU. Plus, AmerGen plans to purchase Vermont Yankee and two reactors at Nine Mile Point in New York, and has completed a deal on the Clinton plant in Illinois. All of these deals, which need approval from various regulators, will probably be completed by the end of this spring. Overall, AmerGen's stated business plan is to acquire up to 20 plants. Of the possible contenders, the Northeast Utilities plants in Connecticut and New Hampshire are slated to go on the auction block soon. Entergy has so far only bought the Pilgrim plant in Massachusetts but has intentions to buy four more units by 2003. All of these units come with substantial decommissioning trust funds to pay for the extensive cleanup of the sites after the reactors are closed down for good.&#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
Substantial indeed. Compared to the $316.5 million AmerGen is spending to acquire six nuclear plants, the company will receive $1.7 billion in accompanying trust funds, which will ultimately be paid by consumers. One of the gambles here is that AmerGen will be able to decommission these plants--a process that entails entirely decontaminating the site of all traces of radioactive material--for cheaper than the collected stash. The company's argument is that AmerGen is assuming the risk of having to pay out more for the cleanup if the estimates are overly optimistic, so they should also be able to reap the rewards. But the decommissioning funds are supplied with ratepayer dollars, and many environmental groups are alarmed that a profit motive could influence the cleanup process. &#13;</p>
<p>&#13;<br />
&#13;<br />
Furthermore, it is not clear whether this windfall will be tax free. Basically, either the IRS or Congress must decide what the tax status of these funds will be as they move from a state regulated utility to a for-profit company. If AmerGen and Entergy get out of paying any tax on the transfers, environmentalists agree they should be forced to share any excess bounty with ratepayers. If not, a couple of decades down the road, consumers and taxpayers will find that they are being ripped off yet again for the same plants. ¤&#13;<br />
&#13;
</p>
<p>&#13;</p>
</div></div></div>Sat, 10 Nov 2001 01:18:13 +0000141932 at http://prospect.orgLaura MaggiBearing Witness for Tobaccohttp://prospect.org/article/bearing-witness-tobacco
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <p><font class="nonprinting articlebody"></font></p>
<p><font size="+2" color="darkred"><b> I</b></font>n 1994, before book after book documented how the tobacco industry had successfully manipulated the public's perceptions about smoking, the eminent historian and author Stephen E. Ambrose took the stand in a Louisiana case brought by Gere Covert, a Baton Rouge attorney who decided to sue after the death of his wife, a longtime smoker, from lung cancer. Testifying for the big four tobacco companies and their lobbying arm, Ambrose hammered home the industry's line: The risks of smoking have been known for decades if not centuries, so smokers who got sick made a knowing choice.</p>
<p></p><p>Ambrose spun a compelling narrative, arguing that since Columbus first plucked tobacco from the Indians the public has had a sense that smoking can't possibly be healthy. For proof he cited the nineteenth-century anti-tobacco temperance movements, old slang like "coffin nails" and "cancer sticks," and the abundance of news stories printed in the 1950s and 1960s as scientists began to accumulate data powerfully suggesting a link between cigarettes and lung cancer. Asked by the tobacco attorney what the public awareness of the health risks of smoking was in the 20 years prior to 1966, when warning labels first went on cigarette packs, Ambrose said, "When the warning went on the labels, you would have to have been deaf and blind not to have known that already in the United States." The jury found for the tobacco companies. </p>
<p></p><p>Ambrose, of course, was paid (handsomely) by the tobacco industry. And he is not the only outside witness to testify for tobacco. Others include not just tobacco's natural ideological allies, but such liberal social scientists as Theodore R. Marmor, a Yale-based advocate of universal health insurance (and occasional writer for this magazine), and the distinguished medical historian Kenneth M. Ludmerer of Washington University in St. Louis. Like Ambrose, neither Ludmerer nor Marmor is known as an expert on tobacco. Ludmerer was unhappy that the <i>Prospect</i> is identifying him as an expert witness for the industry and was reluctant to be interviewed on the record. Marmor expressed indignation at what he termed "moralistic bullshit." These two men are highly critical in other contexts of for-profit industries that affect the nation's health. So it is a little startling to find them in Big Tobacco's corner. </p>
<p></p><p><font color="darkred"><b>Arguing Both Sides of the Question</b></font></p>
<p></p><p>Supposedly expert testimony is used by the tobacco industry in most tobacco lawsuits to describe what a health menace tobacco was widely considered to be--although in other settings, the industry, with the exception of the Liggett Group, still disputes this characterization. Indeed, the industry itself has spent billions of dollars to keep the public from learning just how harmful tobacco is. So if everybody should have known that cigarette smoking was bad for one's health, it was only because the industry had failed to convince the public otherwise. </p>
<p>In the first half of the twentieth century, ads even touted supposed health benefits. Cigarette brands claimed doctor endorsements. Old Gold promised "not a cough in a carload." As studies indicating a connection between smoking and lung cancer began to be widely publicized in the early 1950s, the industry's misinformation campaign challenged research findings and did what it could to suppress them, well past 1964, when the first surgeon general's report concluded smoking could lead to lung cancer and that cigarettes were habit forming. </p>
<p>In 1954 the industry put out its now infamous "Frank Statement," an advertisement in hundreds of newspapers, in which the industry vowed to get to the bottom of the cancer question, establishing a committee to sponsor research. But tobacco-sponsored research was anything but independent, and the industry kept insisting that any hypothetical links between smoking and disease were unproven. The industry pressured newspapers and networks who took advertising dollars not to run editorial material on smoking and health. It eventually supported weakened health warnings only as a pre-emptive strategy against future lawsuits. Even to this day, while tobacco executives repeatedly argue at trial that smokers knew the risks, they continue to dispute that smoking causes cancer.</p>
<p></p><p><font size="+2" color="darkred"><b> H</b></font>owever, it is becoming increasingly clear that cigarette companies knew much more than they let on. Years of litigation and the occasional whistle-blower have unearthed thousands of previously undisclosed internal documents that are now being effectively used in anti-tobacco litigation. But despite mounting evidence of the industry's half-century cover-up, the tactic of insisting that "everyone knew" continues to sway juries. Here the role of the supposed independent expert witness is crucial. To win cases against tobacco, plaintiffs' attorneys must persuade jurors to forget what they know now about smoking and imagine how people viewed smoking in the 1950s, when smokers took up the habit, probably as teenagers. "People have a hard time remembering 50 years ago, 30 years ago, or 20 years ago," said Stanton Glantz, an antismoking crusader and medical school professor at the University of California at San Francisco. "The important fact, which is complicated for people to grasp, is that the tobacco companies are really good at twisting around common knowledge." When told by a well-credentialed academic that things were pretty much clear-cut, it can be hard for juries to keep in mind that even as articles began to appear in magazines about the dangers of smoking, the mind-set of people absorbing that information would have been drastically different from that of readers today.</p>
<p>It's not surprising that scientists and marketing experts in the direct employ of the tobacco companies draw conclusions as the industry wishes them to. There are also independent conservative academics whose own world view is consistent with the industry's point of view. For example, there are academics who argue that smokers who die prematurely from lung cancer are actually doing the health system a favor because on average they save medical costs that would have been incurred had they lived to a ripe old age; hence there is no logic to health system litigation against tobacco companies. Members of the law and economics school, such as Harvard Law School economist W. Kip Viscusi, insist that most risks are by definition freely incurred and often overstated. These scholars are principled allies of the tobacco industry, if one can use such a phrase. </p>
<p>More surprising, however, are genuinely independent scholars with no ideological or methodological ax to grind who testify on the side of Big Tobacco. Their value is suggested by the fees they can command. Historians who have testified for tobacco typically have said at trial that they received between $25,000 and $80,000. In the 1994 case, for example, Ambrose said he received about $25,000 for his work, while his research assistants made around $20,000. Ambrose, who did not return phone calls for this article, was asked in a 1997 deposition for the state of Florida case why he was testifying for the defendants. Ambrose replied, "For compensation." The attorney followed up, "So the reason you have agreed to provide the services is for the money?" The answer? "Yes." </p>
<p></p><p><font color="darkred"><b>Expertise for Hire</b></font></p>
<p></p><p>What is also suspicious is the similarity in the basic arguments and pieces of evidence used in testimony by ostensibly independent experts. It is revealing that few of these experts have published on the history of tobacco. Consider recent testimony by other historians from the state universities of South Carolina, Oregon, and Minnesota and the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., who have recited the industry line that tobacco's ill effects were widely known. Curiously, the actual specialties of these historians include Latin American history and the United States' international relations. None is a historian of addiction or of tobacco use, and most don't even concentrate on general U.S. social history. All of the testimony follows essentially the same pattern as Ambrose's, culled almost exclusively from newspaper and magazine articles as well as polling data, all highly correlated with the industry's own propaganda.</p>
<p>None of these independent historians has balanced the picture with discussion of how the popular culture glamorized smoking or of the industry's own efforts to persuade Americans that smoking was an acceptable risk. Rather, they've emphasized the occasional obscure pop culture item that bemoaned tobacco, such as Tex Williams's 1947 recording of "Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette)" about the power of nicotine. "It is a very narrow view of what a sophisticated historian would call common knowledge," said Allan Brandt, a Harvard medical historian who has reviewed much of this testimony. "It fundamentally eliminates several of the larger forces that help to construct common knowledge, such as the public statements of the industry itself." Although those interviewed for this article said their research was self-directed, coincidentally they all zeroed in on the same factoids while ignoring other information. </p>
<p>The industry's witnesses are also highly selective in their use of polling data. A 1998 paper written by researchers with the Gallup organization criticized the biased selection of polls by historians in tobacco trials, noting they consistently picked polls that give an inflated sense of the public's awareness of health risks from smoking. The report focused on the specific testimony of Lacy K. Ford, a University of South Carolina professor who specializes in southern history, but the polls Ford cited are also typically singled out by other pro-industry witnesses. Most dredge up a question Gallup asked in 1954: if people had heard or read anything about smoking being a cause of lung cancer. Ninety percent of respondents said yes, which the industry's experts cite as evidence that lots of people knew plenty about the risks of smoking. But Gallup's researchers point out that in the very same year, when a poll asked respondents specifically if they believed smoking is a cause of cancer, only 42 percent said yes. (During a phone interview, Ford said he had made it a policy not to talk about the substance of his testimony.)</p>
<p></p><p><font size="+2" color="darkred"><b> T</b></font>heodore Marmor said that as an expert witness he is open to testifying for whichever side thinks his opinions will be helpful, and that he enjoys the intellectual challenge of testimony. "Testifying is the most direct challenge to my capacity as a scholar to speak truthfully and persuasively--much more so than academic writing," he explained. Last year, Marmor wrote an expert witness report and gave a deposition in a union health fund lawsuit against tobacco companies. He was paid $20,000 for his time, and his research assistants received another $20,000. Marmor said he is scheduled to testify this spring in a similar case brought by various Blue Cross Blue Shield plans. A substantial part of Marmor's testimony in both cases is essentially a variation of the common-knowledge defense, arguing that it didn't matter that the industry didn't tell insurance companies or union funds what it knew about smoking because there was already enough information out there for them to make their decisions. Marmor draws a distinction between his role as a public health advocate and his willingness to testify for the tobacco companies. "The role of the academic expert is to tell the truth," said Marmor in an interview. "The role of political participants is to seek value."</p>
<p>Marmor, like many other academic witnesses hired by the industry, is not an expert on tobacco. Though he has written more than 100 scholarly articles, he has not published on smoking and health. He is, rather, a general health policy analyst. His value to the industry is not in his expertise about tobacco per se, but in his willingness as a Yale professor to lend general credence to the industry's tactic of insisting that no cover-up occurred because tobacco risks were well-known. In this sense, experts like Marmor function less as repositories of specialized scholarly knowledge than as character witnesses for tobacco.</p>
<p>Last year Kenneth Ludmerer testified in an individual smoker trial in Portland, Oregon, which Philip Morris lost in a landmark $80-million verdict for the plaintiff. Like Marmor, Ludmerer, author of two exhaustive and acclaimed histories of medical education, has not published on tobacco. In his testimony, he specifically discussed the medical literature between 1930 and 1964, when the first surgeon general's report on the dangers of smoking came out. He reviewed the emerging scientific controversy, discussing how scientists were slow in coming to a consensus about what the statistical data linking lung cancer and cigarettes meant. "The testimony was purely historical. When did we first become suspicious? When did a consensus arrive? It was purely historical testimony," Ludmerer said in an interview. "I'm firmly on record that tobacco is a great threat to public health. I am not an apologist for the tobacco industry." </p>
<p>In questioning directed by the tobacco attorney, Ludmerer's expertise was brought to bear on more than the 1,200 to 1,600 articles he estimated he read in preparation for his testimony. For example, at one point the lawyer asked Ludmerer about Clarence Little, a former head of the American Cancer Society who assumed the leadership of the tobacco industry's research body when it was created in 1954. In the Frank Statement that year, the industry promised the American public the council's research would be directed by a "scientist of unimpeachable integrity and national repute." When asked if that was an accurate description of Little, Ludmerer replied, "Absolutely. Very much so."</p>
<p>But as Richard Kluger explains in his tobacco industry history, <i>Ashes to Ashes</i>, while Little might have had a formidable medical past, as head of the Tobacco Industry Research Council (later the Council for Tobacco Research) he directed no substantial research into the cancer question and essentially became part of the tobacco industry's obfuscation process. And, in this instance, so did Ludmerer. </p>
<p></p><p><font size="+2" color="darkred"><b> T</b></font>he tobacco industry pays generously and gets its money's worth. Expert testimony can be crucial in a tobacco trial, swaying juries to overlook internal documents showing the industry targeted children with its marketing or lied about its own scientists' opinions about smoking, or ran a propaganda campaign to convince the public that smoking was safe. While the industry has been forced to settle with attorneys general for many billions of dollars, it is only just beginning to feel the impact of juries finding that the industry deliberately killed millions of people by persuading them to smoke despite what the industry knew.</p>
<p>Most reputable scholars will not give partial and highly selective accounts of available evidence depending on who is paying the freight. What's disconcerting is that plenty of independent scholars, when paid enough money, are evidently willing to lend their names to an enterprise that is responsible for hundreds of thousands of smoking deaths annually, and to what would be dubious scholarship in any other context. ¤</p>
<p><br /></p>
<p><br /></p>
<hr size="1" /><center>
<p align="center"><font face="verdana,geneva,arial" size="-2"></font>
class="nonprinting"&gt;</p>
<hr size="1" /></center></div></div></div>Fri, 09 Nov 2001 22:42:24 +0000140610 at http://prospect.orgLaura Maggi